By MIA STEINLE
An ongoing government analysis of an important nuclear weapons laboratory’s ability to withstand earthquakes may be flawed, according to a federal oversight panel.
The analysis of how the plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory would hold up in a strong earthquake “is technically inadequate” in several ways, the oversight panel wrote in a July 18 letter to the Department of Energy.
“Timely action must be taken to fully understand if additional building modifications are required,” the oversight board said.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in the letter that it “remains concerned by the seismic integrity of the Plutonium Facility,” adding that the ongoing analysis has “profound implications for ensuring public health and safety.”
The analysis in dispute is being performed by the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and by the contractors that operate the New Mexico laboratory.
Asked for comment, NNSA spokesman Joshua McConaha said his agency is working on a response to the oversight panel.
"Regardless of any future improvements, the risk to the public from operations at [the Los Alamos plutonium facility] remains very small," he said, adding that "the facility is operating well within the safety objectives established by [Department of Energy] safety policy, and public safety is adequately protected."
The oversight panel’s criticism comes one month after the panel issued a report that found that Los Alamos National Laboratory had underestimated the amount of radiation that could leak from the plutonium facility as a result of an earthquake. As the Project On Government Oversight reported, the panel concluded that the radiation could be more than four times as intense as the laboratory had estimated.
The plutonium facility was designed and built in the 1970s and lacks the earthquake resistance required by modern building codes, the oversight panel said in its July 18 letter.
As a result, in the event of a strong earthquake, the facility is “susceptible to catastrophic structural failure,” according to the letter.
In 2007, the contractor that runs Los Alamos found that an earthquake near the facility could cause ground motions up to five times greater than the facility was designed to withstand, the letter said.
Los Alamos, which is located 35 miles outside of Santa Fe, was last shaken by an earthquake in October 2011, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The oversight panel demanded that the Department of Energy write a report within 30 days explaining how it is assessing the facility’s vulnerability to a strong quake.
Mia Steinle is an investigator for the Project On Government Oversight. Image from Flickr user domsticat.
Hopefully the new Chairwomen of the NRC can cut through the Geology Nuclear Baloney* and provide some much needed Leadership so that the rest of the Commissioners stop living in Nuclear Denial**...
America cannot afford a Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster like Japan has...
*Nuclear Baloney (NB)
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Nuclear+Baloney
** Nuclear Denial
* http://is.gd/XPjMd0
The illogical belief that Nature cannot destroy any land based nuclear reactor, any place anytime 24/7/365!
Posted by: CaptD | Jul 27, 2012 at 07:19 PM
Here is another great article about reactor "issues" affecting safety with many tech comments...
How Broken Is the San Onofre Nuclear Plant?
http://is.gd/pF46y1
Posted by: CaptD | Jul 27, 2012 at 03:23 PM
I agree so does this Article about Fukushima:
March 12th, 2011 – Chairman of Japan Atomic Energy Commission’s high-level report on Fukushima Daiichi sequence of events
http://wp.me/p21p6a-92S
see comments
snip
RE: It was reported at 15: 35 that the Reactor Building of 1F1 was ruptured after a rather strong earthquake with the sound of explosion and that the level of radiation at the site boundary was suddenly doubled from 500 micro Sv/hr of that after venting operation to 1 mSv/hr. The explosion is considered due to explosion of hydrogen leaked from the primary coolant boundary caused by the impact of the earthquake.
JUST AS MANY OF US HERE HAVE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG:
The giant Earth Quake did start the meltdown process!
Posted by: CaptD | Jul 27, 2012 at 03:22 PM